{"id":8815,"date":"2019-12-04T10:21:36","date_gmt":"2019-12-04T02:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/?p=8815"},"modified":"2020-12-03T10:01:58","modified_gmt":"2020-12-03T02:01:58","slug":"reporting-tool-beyond-excel-dynamic-and-automatic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/2019\/12\/04\/reporting-tool-beyond-excel-dynamic-and-automatic\/","title":{"rendered":"Reporting Tool Beyond Excel: Dynamic and Automatic"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Why we need reporting tools?<\/h2>\n<p>You can&#8217;t deny the fact that almost every position in the company is inseparable from reports.<\/p>\n<p>If you are a report producer, your job is to <strong>extract appropriate data and make reports<\/strong> according to key indicators;<\/p>\n<p>If you are a business staff, the basic components of your work are <strong>model + indicator + report +data visualization<\/strong>;<\/p>\n<p>If you are an operation and maintenance staff, your job is to ensure that the company&#8217;s core reports are <strong>released on time<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Reports can help maintain the company&#8217;s normal production and operation. Leaders pay attention to the development of the company. They need to see the business logic from the reports. Analysts pay attention to problems, they need to find changes in the reports. The financial staff pays attention to income and profits, they need to conduct financial analysis and marketing from reports.<\/p>\n<p>In reality, business people often do not obtain information and knowledge through the use of report analysis tools. <strong>Reports + Excel + PowerPoint<\/strong> still seem to be the mainstream.<\/p>\n<p>Reports are so important that they are relevant to almost everyone in the business, but making a report is easy, but making a good report is difficult.<\/p>\n<p>What do you use for reporting? This is a difficult problem. I believe that most or 90% of people are using Excel. It is simple, convenient, and basically installed on every computer. It is not difficult to learn, but what is the report made in Excel?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/01.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8816\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/01.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1298\" height=\"828\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/01.png 1298w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/01-300x191.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/01-768x490.png 768w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/01-1024x653.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1298px) 100vw, 1298px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">From \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/zahrakamila-20152016-9d.blogspot.com\/\">blogspot.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Every time I see such a report, I always feel that I can&#8217;t find the point, and it is difficult to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/reporting-tools\/automated-reporting.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">automate excel reports<\/a>. Of course,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/product-functions\/2019s-best-reporting-tool-that-reaches-far-beyond-excel.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> advanced Excel reports<\/a> can also be made like this.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/02.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8817\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/02.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1396\" height=\"830\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/02.png 1396w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/02-300x178.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/02-768x457.png 768w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/02-1024x609.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1396px) 100vw, 1396px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">From Neil Patel<\/p>\n<p>Excel is indeed a good reporting tool, and the pivot table function is very easy to use, but it also has two fatal disadvantages:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>The amount of enterprise data is getting larger and larger, when Excel faces a large amount of data, the corresponding time is too long or it cannot respond<\/li>\n<li>There are relatively few types of charts for data visualization in Excel. Only column charts, bubble charts, and area maps are available. At present, the common needs in the field of big data are not in the optional range. The available themes are also Microsoft classics. There appears to be some &#8220;visual fatigue&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Below I will introduce you to a \u201cmoving\u201d reporting tool: FineReport, the personal version is completely free, and it supports a variety of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/data-visualization\/top-16-types-of-chart-in-data-visualization.html\">chart types<\/a>, you can download the trial <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/activation\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/03.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8818\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/03.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"1181\" height=\"620\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The picture above is a dashboard made by FineReport, which contains a variety of dynamic charts and data maps.<\/p>\n<p>Dynamic reports not only look more beautiful, but more importantly, they can view the latest data in real time, display business analysis results more intuitively, and greatly improve work efficiency and decision accuracy.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>How to implement a dynamic report with a reporting tool?<\/strong><\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Steps are as follows:<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>1.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/reporting-tools\/best-reporting-tools-list.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Choose a reporting tool you like<\/a>(here I choose FineReport ), use a template, and import data<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After downloading, select the DB Query, you can find the data you want to import, rely on the cell expansion and the relationship between the parent-child cells to achieve the template effect, and drag the data into the cell, as shown below:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/04.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8819\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/04.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2876\" height=\"1610\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/04.png 2876w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/04-300x168.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/04-768x430.png 768w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/04-1024x573.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2876px) 100vw, 2876px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>2.Define parameters<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After the data is imported, we need to set a parameter to query different values through the parameter. In FineReport, you can directly select it through &#8220;Template-Parameter&#8221;. For example, I set the parameter name to \u201cregion\u201d and the default value is &#8220;east-china&#8221;, as follows:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/05.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8820\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/05.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1796\" height=\"1196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/05.png 1796w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/05-300x200.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/05-768x511.png 768w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/05-1024x682.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1796px) 100vw, 1796px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>3.Parameter filtering settings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After setting the parameters, all the data will still be displayed without filtering, so you need to set the parameter filtering of the cells, you can follow &#8220;Cell Element-Filter condition&#8221; on the right:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/06.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8821\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/06.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2386\" height=\"1236\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/06.png 2386w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/06-300x155.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/06-768x398.png 768w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/06-1024x530.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2386px) 100vw, 2386px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>4.Widget settings<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>After the parameter filtering is completed, a widget capable of storing parameter selection is required. In this report, a drop-down box is selected, as follows:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/07.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8822\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/07.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"2390\" height=\"1506\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/07.png 2390w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/07-300x189.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/07-768x484.png 768w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/07-1024x645.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2390px) 100vw, 2390px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>5.Report preview<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Here, a dynamic report is basically completed, you can click preview to view:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/08.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8823\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/08.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"1423\" height=\"735\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>6. Aggregated report design<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>It is especially for large irregular reports. It is suitable for a report in which multiple independent modules are displayed in a template, and several report blocks are combined together for a complex report.<a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/09.png\"><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8824\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/09.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"939\" height=\"470\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/09.png 939w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/09-300x150.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/09-768x384.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 939px) 100vw, 939px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>7. Decision report design<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Decision reports are also called dashboards, which are data visualization reports stitched together by various charts. By dragging and dropping the charts, the prepared dashboard can be adapted to the size of the screen, or can be made into a report on the mobile phone. In the end, you can achieve a dashboard of visual data as shown below.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/201992421A.gif\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10631\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/201992421A.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"1150\" height=\"506\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Also, FineReport has powerful <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/data-visualization\/top-10-map-types-in-data-visualization.html\">data map<\/a> functions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/11.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-8828\" src=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/11.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"1868\" height=\"914\" srcset=\"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/11.png 1868w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/11-300x147.png 300w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/11-768x376.png 768w, https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/11-1024x501.png 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1868px) 100vw, 1868px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>FineReport, as a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/\">professional reports software<\/a>, not only can greatly reduce the time required for related staff to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/reporting-tools\/report-generation.html\">generate reports<\/a>, but also can support business operations, improve work efficiency and synergy, reduce staff training costs, and provide effective support and assistance for business decisions. In this respect, FineReport is better than Excel.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"graf graf--h3\">You might also be interested in\u2026<\/h3>\n<p class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/reporting-tools\/automated-reporting.html\">A Complete Guide for Automated Reporting<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/reporting-tools\/data-reporting.html\">A guide to take your data reporting to another level<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.finereport.com\/en\/reporting-tools\/best-reporting-tools-list.html\">Best Reporting Tools in 2020 and How to Choose<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Learn how to use reporting tools to generate reports in a dynamic and automatic way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8818,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[138],"tags":[139],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8815"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8815"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8815\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11231,"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8815\/revisions\/11231"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8818"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/frg.fineres.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}